Organizations Representing Visual Artists Protest Instagram Changes

December 20, 2012 09:56 AM Eastern Time

PHILADELPHIA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP), Professional
Photographers of America (PPA), National Press Photographers Association
(NPPA), Picture Archive Council of America (PACA), American Photographic
Artists (APA) and Graphic Artists Guild (GAG), trade associations
representing professional photographers, graphic artists, illustrators,
visual journalists, videographers and other content creators and their
licensing representatives, have received numerous objections regarding
the proposed change to Instagram's terms of use. The terms provide
Instagram with a perpetual right to sell users’ content without payment
or notification, and requires the content owner to represent and warrant
to Instagram that Instagram’s use will not violate any third party
rights, including publicity and privacy rights. We are pleased that
Instagram is listening to the complaints and we are willing to work with
them and review any proposed terms to avoid new terms that are confusing
or misleading. For example, it is unreasonable to expect any content
creator to have obtained releases from third parties depicted in the
content, or to indemnify Instagram for any third party rights for any
commercial use of the content.

To be clear, even if a service states that the content owner retains
copyright to content uploaded, the undersigned visual art associations
object to terms of use which require users to grant the service provider
with broad perpetual rights in the content that exceed the rights
necessary for the user to enjoy the service, and in particular any grant
of commercial use to either the service provider or any third party
which may violate third party publicity rights. Instagram and Facebook
are platforms for communities to share photographs for personal and
professional use. Any grant of rights to commercialize photographs
without informed consent of the creator and/or payment violates the
norms of this community, including the rights of photographers, artists
and their licensing representatives under our copyright system, as well
as the rights of third parties.